07 November 2012

In my mid twenties I was an “Adult” with a capital A. Sure,
I still had a framed poster of Hedwig and the Angry Inch on my living room wall
(since relegated to the bathroom) and when my friends came over to stay on
weekends we got absolutely wrecked, but I had a steady 9-5 job, a beautiful
apartment in the West End and a fat stack of RRSPs accumulating interest in the
bank (or wherever they are).

I also didn’t like myself very much. Worse, I had no idea that I didn’t like myself very
much. That combination is dangerous.

I was caught in this strange limbo in which I attempted to
show everyone, including my loving boyfriend, just how normal I was. Just how
well adjusted and Adult-y and capable and good.
I stifled the part of personality that loves dark and macabre things in
order to prove that I was not fucked up IN ANY WAY AT ALL. See, I have always loved horror movies
and graveyards and scary stories and since childhood I have nurtured a fucked
up fascination with death. But in my mind, if I was somehow bad (too brash, too
loud, too manipulative, too much ME) then this stuff was contributing to the
badness. So it got the kibosh.

Not too many people know this, but while I was backpacking
Asia and living in India a few years ago I was also being bullied and stalked
online. I filed police reports and cried and lived my life in a kind of quiet
desperation, just wanting it to stop. The worst part of it all was that the
person who was harassing me seemed to know that I had a molten hot core of
self-hate and they knew EXACTLY how to fan those flames. I slid into a world of
self doubt and sickly nausea. I would pick at my raw scabs and re-read the awful
things that this person sent to me and I would envelop myself in a blanket of
shame. I made choices and decisions in my personal life that echoed the swamp
of negativity in my brain. I lived in a weird hell.

And my weird hell was constantly being surveilled online.
Every blog post I wrote was written with a keen sense of self censorship as I
attempted to prove to the harasser – and, by proxy, to myself - that I was good. I left so, so many things out,
afraid to admit them even to myself.It
was a sick loop. The horrible things they said to me reinforced every fear I had ever secretly held about my perceived inner wretchedness.

I went to talk to a counselor about it last year, and she
looked at me in horror as I recounted the entire saga and then admitted that I
still re-read the horrible things that the harasser sent to me. She wrinkled
her nose and spat out the words, “Well, that’s stupid. You just don’t do that
anymore.”

This advice should not have worked. At the time, the counselor's harsh recriminations sent
me reeling from her office and I should have landed in the arms of some liquor,
the wrong boy and my email archives to worry at some old wounds - but somehow
it worked. Since that day eighteen months ago I have not once looked at
anything the harasser has sent me. It feels amazing.

Shortly after this breakthrough I started studying Buddhism
in earnest and I began to cultivate self-compassion. I forgave myself for all
of the pain I have caused others in the past (and started to work on forgiving
myself). The old unquestioned notion that I was a “bad person” began to fade
away.

And now here is the weird thing. As I work on this
monumental task of loving and forgiving myself, all of the sudden I realize
that as long as my actions are compassionate and kind, it doesn’t matter
whether I love Bauhaus,Dario Argento and grave etchings. Whether I get jazzed
about memento mori and Victorian hair sculpture and human skulls. I can still
be “good.” I am still good. In fact, I think I am better for it. One of my favourite things about Buddhism is that it actively encourages us to think about death, to prepare for it and to realize that it is nothing to fear.

There is a bittersweet irony in the fact that it took me
embracing the dark side of my personality to get to the light. Stifling the
weirdo macabre parts of my brain in order to be sweet was like going to war for
peace (or fucking for celibacy). Redundant.

This was meant to be a post about my walking tour through
Singapore’s Chinatown, and I still want to write about that – but for now I
think that this should stand on it’s own. I’m glad I wrote about it, and I promise it will make sense after my next post. The paper effigies, dead women and temples of Chinatown loosened some things in my brain - and made me more ready for the next eight months. To be continued....

Hej hej my dear, dear, Violet Dear. I can only say what I already think, you are like all of us, a work in progress. If you did not embrace and learn from the dark, the sad, the painful, you would not appreciate or truly understand the things you have achieved. With much love and admiration, your fellow traveler of the inner world.

Who's That Girl?

I'm a writer, Masters student and neon sign historian who loves Herzog films, late night poutine and petting dogs. I currently reside in London, England where I am completing a postgrad in Heritage Studies. These are my ramblings about architecture, food, pop culture and Buddhism.